13/14 y/o baseball tournament time!!

[kgauger30]

Hey everyone. I have made a few posts here. I wanted to post a few pictures of the last game to get your feedback. I feel I have gotten 100x's better since the beginning of the season. What do you think of the pictures?? I was trying to do center focus, but doesnt look like it worked on the pitcher one and the Catcher. How can I help with this?

Kim

1. Regular league championship picture. (they got the hats as trophies, they figured they were too old for regular trophies)

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e115/kgauger30/alanchamps.jpg


2. Pitcher...

http://kgaugerphoto.photosite.com/~photos/tn/3838_1024.ts1180917935703.jpg


3.Catcher.. I know you can not see his face on this one, I was not where I could get it, but I did get the timing down and got the ball in frame.

http://kgaugerphoto.photosite.com/~photos/tn/3850_1024.ts1180918074640.jpg

4.Last one.. This is my son.. I was shooting through the fence and I was almost laying on the ground. I just liked the way this one looked with the different angle and he actually had a smile for a change (it was his 14th birthday and he was cranky!!)

http://kgaugerphoto.photosite.com/~photos/tn/3883_1024.ts1180918378656.jpg





So now you have seen them what do you think? Only thing done to them is a crop, nothing else. Pluse I was shooting through chain link fence that is CRAP and had to be creative trying to get some shots.. CC very welcome!!

Kim
Thanks for looking at my post!!

[bigjon0107]

I like the series, but #3 is OOF (like you mentioned), the AF point seems to be on the fence. But great timing. Something that you could do to help this with pic #3 is to move the AF point to the right, so it would be sitting on the catcher, or for some reason if you are not shooting ai servo, you could just refocus on the catcher then re frame it. Then don't forget to move the AF point back :)

-Jon

[laurielozano]

a little USM on these would help tremendously.

[kgauger30]

Yeah I have no idea why the focus jumped, maybe I didnt get it adjusted like I thought. Oh well, these are mainily practice for me anyway. I liked it though because this game I was getting my timing down alot better. I used to just hold the shutter and fire away, but that resulted in alot of shots I didn't like. so now that I am starting to get the hang of everything, I am getting the timing of the pitches and swings down so I can get the ball in the frame as well!! Yes I us Ai Servo. :)

USM?? Why do I need that?

[laurielozano]

USM at 60%/2.0/0 makes them look sharper, takes the fog off. You pretty much need to do this with all pics taken on the XT's. Do it on one and see how much better the pic looks, its amazing at what an improvement a little USM makes.

[kgauger30]

USM is on a lens right? I do not have a USM lens..

[laurielozano]

USM is an acronym for Un Sharp Mask, a filter used in Photoshop. Its also in Gimp (a free-bee Mock Photoshop software).
If you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, or even the Zoom Browser software that comes with most canon cameras, you can apply the Unsharp Mask Filter to your images.

Un-Sharp Mask Settings in PHOTOSHOP

*The Amount slider determines the amt of sharpening applied to the photo;
*The Radius slider determines how many pixels out from the edge the sharpening will affect;
*The Threshold slider works opposite of what you might think-the lower the #, the more intense the sharpening effect. Threshold determines how different a pixel must be before it's considered an edge pixel and sharpened by the filter.

Basic Sharpening- Amount 125%, Radius 1, and Threshold 3
Sharpening Soft Subjects, flowers, puppies, rainbows, people-150/1/10
Portraits, head and shoulders type thing-75/2/3
Moderate Sharpening, product shots, interiors, exteriors, landscapes-225/.5/0
Maximum Sharpening, out of focus photos or photos with well defined edges like buildings, cars machinery, coins- 65/4/3
All-purpose Sharpening, subtle enough that it can be used twice-85/1/4
Web sharpening, for graphics that loose sharpness in dropping the resolution-400/.3/0 or 200/.3/0
Defog, done to digital images before anything else to lift the digital haze-20/60/0
Finishing Mask, done when you are all done to remove editing noise-60/1/0

Coming up with your own settings-
Amount ranges from 50% to 150% you are fairly safe staying under 150%
Radius most of the time you will just use 1 pixel but you can go as high as 2.4 in extreme situations. Slider will go up to 250 but don't ever go that high!!
Threshold a safe range is anywhere from 3 to 20 with 3 being the most intense and 20 being much more subtle. To really increase the intensity of your sharpening, lower it to 0 but keep an eye out for noise appearing in your photos.

[laurielozano]

I ran unsharp mask to defog your first and second images,
here's how it looks after the mask is applied...
I ran the defog settings on these twice each...

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s302/laurielozano/alanchamps.jpg

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s302/laurielozano/3838_1024.jpg

[laurielozano]

I used Gimp since I dont have CS2 on my laptop at work.

[laurielozano]

Oh how funny, I just noticed in your group shot that one of the boys is not wearing any shoes, he's standing there in his sock feet. I just found that a little humorous. :)
These are good pics though, you did a good job.

[kgauger30]

lol yeah it wasn't really a planned shot.. The boys were just there to get their "trophies" so some wore their uniforms and looked silly cause they didn't follow directions.. Yeah two of them came in full uniform so the one took off his cleates and just wore his socks!! I thought about just cropping it at their waists, but it took the charm out of it..

Thanks for the comment!
Kim